You may have never heard of Saucy Lips’ line of gourmet sauces, and that is likely because they are not available in stores. So, unless you meet the folks behind the sauce at a farmers market or festival – or happen to come across their website – this may be your first introduction to their vegan, GMO-free sauces for cooking, grilling, sautéing, marinating, dipping and dressing salads.

The limited availability is by choice and is a big part of what sets these sauces apart from other options. Saucy Lips is a small, family-owned company that makes their sauces fresh to order in small batches, which immediately makes them kind of awesome. They also get extra points for having the four-legged members of their family in their family photo on their website.

These gourmet cooking sauces outshine other options in that they are gluten free, soy free, GMO free, dairy free, nut free, vegan, all natural and paleo friendly, which means just about anyone can enjoy them. Plus, did you see that calorie count? If you are using this as a salad dressing or marinade, that is definitely an improvement over most of the sauces you are going to find in stores.

They use no preservatives other than apple cider vinegar, so the sauces have a shelf life of about a year and need to be refrigerated once you open them. And, because they want to make sure you receive the freshest ingredients possible, this is another reason they can’t have their sauces sitting around in warehouses or on store shelves.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to try the Zesty Cilantro and the Peppery Strawberry, so let’s see how that went…

Vegan Product Review: Saucy Lips Zesty Cilantro Gourmet Sauce

I got my first taste of the Zesty Cilantro gourmet sauce by Saucy Lips on some vegan Beyond Chicken served with mashed potatoes and broccoli. The fake chicken started out frozen, so I wasn’t able to marinate it like I had originally planned, but I ended up using the Zesty Cilantro sauce more like a simmering sauce, which made the house smell SO good while it was cooking.

In fact, I think this might be the first time my omnivore wife was super interested in the vegan chicken cooking up on the stove.

This zesty cilantro vegan chicken was so good that I ate it for dinner that night, ate the leftovers the next day, and then made the exact same meal on the third day and ate those leftovers on the fourth day. That’s how good this stuff is – totally worth eating four days in a row.

Now, of course, a girl can’t live on Beyond Chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli alone, so my next taste test was a simple snack of a handful of cherry tomatoes from my backyard garden tossed with some Saucy Lips Zesty Cilantro gourmet sauce.

Yep, that worked out pretty well too.

The Zesty Cilantro has this tang to it that is just awesome and definitely makes the sauce live up to its name.

By now, I didn’t have a whole lot of gourmet sauce left in the bottle, so I used the rest as a dipping sauce for some more backyard tomatoes and warmed bread (that is a gluten-free baguette by Schar in the photo, by the way).

I know it is hard to go wrong with bread, but not every sauce is ideal for bread dipping, so you never know. Turns out, Saucy Lips Zesty Cilantro is a perfectly fine – and quite delish – bread dipping sauce, so if you happen to pick some up, I definitely recommend trying it.

Overall, Zesty Cilantro was a total winner for me and I would definitely buy it in the future.

Vegan Product Review: Saucy Lips Peppery Strawberry Gourmet Sauce

Once I had finished off the bottle of Zesty Cilantro, it was time to take on the Peppery Strawberry gourmet sauce. The emphasis here is on peppery and, while I really dug the zesty tang of the Zesty Cilantro, the peppery part of the Peppery Strawberry caught me a little off guard. As in, I actually coughed and had to take a second to recover. This may or may not have also involved the f-word.

So, we can start by saying this one has a bold flavor that might kick your ass for a second if you aren’t ready for it.

Now, I should note that I had poured some on a spoon and just popped it in my mouth so that I could get the flavor and determine how best to use it. So that is part of the problem: With these handcrafted sauces that use fresh ingredients, you don’t have to use as much to achieve maximum flavor, so…if you toss back a spoonful of something with “peppery” in the name, it is kind of your own fault if that doesn’t go so well for you.

I ended up using this Saucy Lips handcrafted sauce as dressing for a cucumber-tomato-beet salad, then as a dipping sauce for some cucumbers and tomatoes, and also as a dipping sauce for bread. After I knew that a little goes a long way in the flavor department with this one, it worked out fine and was a welcome change from typical salad dressings that are not as bold.

If you would like to try some Saucy Lips Handcrafted Gourmet Sauce for yourself, you can pick some up from their booth at farmers markets and festivals (mostly in California, Arizona and Florida), or you can order it directly from their website. When it is not on sale, it will set you back $19.99 per bottle with flat-rate shipping of $5.00 on domestic orders. I have seen it on sale for $14.99 on their website, though, so keep an eye out for sales.

Now, you and I both know that this cheap vegan chick would never buy a bottle of $19.99 gourmet sauce that I saw on a shelf at Sprouts or Whole Foods or some other store. So, if I had not met these fine folks at a vegan festival, I may have totally missed out on ever trying it. That would have sucked.

I know $19.99 sounds like a lot, but we do have to remember that this is not a mass-produced product – it is handcrafted in small batches as they get orders. Plus, you get to support a small, family-owned business that is truly dedicated to providing healthy, delicious sauces from fresh ingredients for our cooking, grilling and dipping needs.

So, for some of us, this might be more of a splurge product, but it is definitely worth it when you are looking for something savory and delish with which to treat yourself and your family.

Be sure to subscribe to their newsletter, which automatically enters you into a weekly giveaway where one subscriber wins a bottle of the handcrafted gourmet sauce of their choice. Plus, you will get recipes and a heads up about special deals.

If you have tried these or other flavors in the Saucy Lips line, let us know what you thought in the comments below!

For our friends at the FTC: The folks at Saucy Lips provided product samples for me to review. Opinions are my own, and there was no additional compensation.